The Fibre (Fiber) Channel (FC) standard addresses the general need in networking for fast transfers of large amounts of information. FC networks utilize an arrangement of switches, referred to as an FC fabric, to connect various devices (e.g., storage arrays, servers, etc.). This approach simplifies the overhead associated with network traffic, since devices with FC ports only manage a point to-point connection between those FC ports and the FC fabric.
To eliminate ambiguity when routing traffic between switches in an FC network, a multi-phase build process is performed to assign each switch one or more unique domain identifiers (IDs). In general, one switch in the FC fabric is selected as a principal switch that assigns domain IDs to the other switches of the FC fabric.
It is often desirable to merge two FC fabrics, for example, to expand a network or link network devices. When merging, the FC fabrics again go through a build process where a new principal switch is selected to assign and maintain domain IDs for all of the switches in the merged FC fabric.